Kitsune, Tomas-

Just glanced at your fic, so just whipped up some private C&C.  I think
that it outlines some serious flaws in your prolog, and I hope that if you
revise this part or in the future, you'll take some of it into account.

On Sun, 2 Sep 2001, Cute Kitsune Kaydee wrote:

Hi I'm Cute Kitsune Kaydee Immortal Researcher of Universes. I record the 
events that happen in the many infinite different Universes. Here is one 
such recording. I hope that you will enjoy it.

Hi, I'm Jason Liao, of no one of particular note.  I used to write fanfics
of no redeeming value, and now C&C a fraction of the nigh infinite
different fanfics that appear in my inbox.
 

Ranma looked around and sighed.  This was the last time that he would view 
his home for the past two years.  The world he was in was shot to hell, and 
the only thing he could do was leave behind those that caused the problems.  
He turned to face the Gate.  It was his greatest achievement.  It was 
allowing him to save many lives.  The most important of those lives were 
only now passing through it.  Ranma checked his watch.  (Too long, this is 
taking far too long.  It's going to be a close call.)  He watched as his 
family passed through the gate.

You have about 3-4 paragraphs worth of material right here, and you're
condensing it into this thing.  While I realize that this is but a prolog,
and that you wish the reader to advance to the story proper, you're not
doing yourself or them a favor if you're not going to elaborate a bit
more.  Without such elaboration, it's difficult to get a feel of this
alternate universe, and to properly suspend one's disbelief.  And without
sucessful suspension of disbelief, interest in the story wanes to nothing.

How about something like this?

=Ranma looked about the ruins of Nerima with a sigh.  It hurt him to see
the once bustling and prosperous section of Tokyo in such ruins.  Large
craters caused by bombs, and more recently, artillery shells dotted the
landscape.  The stores, once busy with vendors selling clothes and fast
food were now empty buildings; the owners who had not moved their property
fast enough or were put out of business by the economic depression that
had fallen once the bullets had started flying were probably killed trying
to defend themselves when rampant looting had started in the later stages
of the war.  The houses, once homes to happy families, were now in various
states of ruin.  This house he stood in front of, in particular, had been
at the edge of a bomb blast.  The family within was not killed, but were
even more unlucky; the roof had collapsed on top of them and slowly
crushed them to death.  Ranma remembered dashing over to the house and
throwing parts of the roof aside to try to save them, but it had been too
late.

=Although the scene in front of him was not one that brought fond
recollections, Ranma worked to imprint it in his mind anyway, as it would
likely be one of his last memories on this world.  He, along with the
majority of the world's population, would be soon departing this world
forever through the Gate.

=Ranma turned, and looked at the Gate.  It was his greatest achievement,
and it would soon save the innocent people of this world from the
nightmare earth had become.  He impatiently waited as only now (Only now?
This would be cutting it short.  He had hoped that everyone would hurry.),
the most important of them were beginning to walk through.

Certainly, I've taken liberties with the background here, and have also
left many potential character building story points untouched.  What I'm
trying to show here is that you need to have something of at least this
depth of detail.  Right now, your character is just a bunch of letters on
a screen.  Make me think of him as a person.

 Ranko, his twin sister, turned to gaze at 
him, her eyes pleading.

Is she ever going to appear in this fic again?  If not, consider dropping
her.  The emotional impact you're trying for here isn't working for me,
since I haven't had time to be reconciled with the fact that Ranma has a
sister, so it comes across as a flimsy attempt at emotionalism.  Using
Akane might give better results, since her background with Ranma should
already be well known to most people.

"Ranma take these scrolls.  On them lie the most dangerous techniques ever 
created.  You may have use for them.  Remember that these were created to 
kill.  Only use them in life or death situations."  Genma handed Ranma a 
pair of scrolls.

This also seems rushed.  Mix in a little description of Genma here.
Anxious?  Worried?  Depressed?  Sweating?

And no, just tacking it on the end isn't going to make it any better.
Change this paragraph around so that the dialouge is mixed with the
description.  

request.  Ranma began the shut down procedures on the Gate.  Even as it 
started to slowly close, he thought back on to how this day had come about.  
He thought back to when he had first discovered the Alien Teaching Device 
and how he had accidentally turned it on.

Okay, this is fine...

_Flashback_ 

...and this is not.


While I don't have any problems with a big label saying "Flashback" if
there's a need for it, you clearly do NOT have a need.  You've already
stated in the preceeding paragraph that he is thinking back in time,
establishing for all except the most stilted that this is a flashback.  
At best, this label is a bother as it interrupts the flow of the fic.  At
worst, it is an insult to the intelligence of the reader.
 

He remembered how he had stumbled onto it when he went to investigate a loud 
explosion. He had found a strange looking sphere. When he had touched it, it 
had opened up and forced him inside. He had been forced into a chair and a 
strange looking helmet had fastened onto his head. He had tried to escape 
but could not move any. Then knowledge from different races scattered all 
over the many Universes had flooded into his mind. The pain was so much that 
he had screamed and blacked out. When he came to he had understood that the 
ATD had rewritten his genetic code and gave him vast amounts of Alien 
knowledge. 

Bleh.  Could you summarize any more? </sarcasm>
Heck with 3-4 paragraphs.  You have a whole half chapter summerized here.

+ How did Ranma find it?  You could do this in many ways.  Offhand,
perhaps Ranma was fleeing from Akane, for it was her day to cook.  To
avoid capture, he hopped on the roof of a train as it was beginning to
speed from the station.  Not wishing to make the trip to Kyoto (may not be
feasible.  If not, find something more realistic), he leapt from the train
after he was safely far away.  There was a loud crash, and he went to
investigate.

Of course, this is just off the top of my head, and you could easily
change it to whatever would back up the later events of your fic easily.  
If you do use this, I would personally recommend that you skip the Ranma
and Akane fight, as it's been overdone to death, but you start with Ranma
running away, towards the station.  Next scene, he gains his inspiration
as the train begins to depart.  He leaps onto the root of the station, and
onto the train itself.  Akane, who does not posess his skills, tries to
barge her way though the gates, and his rebuffed as she does not have a
ticket. The following scene would follow a scene break (I use ---, but
whatever floats your boat).  Describe some of the scenery to establish
that it's quite a deserted area the train is passing through now, far away
from Nerima (or indeed any person who might have heard the crash) and that
perhaps it's not to his advantage to stay on the train top, and that if he
leaps right now, he might make it home by tomorrow.  He jumps, tumbles,
and after brushing himself off, heads for home.  Then the crash, which he
decides to investigate.

+What does this alien thingy look like?
+Was it scary?  Did it hurt?  Did it tickle?

Okay, so Ranma sees this thing, and goes to investigate.  Describe it,
what he thinks and feels as he sees it, and why he decides to look
further in.  Perhaps arrogance, followed by anger as he realizes he can't
escape.  Perhaps abject fear, because he's being pulled into the great
unknown.  Perhaps pleasure, as he views beating the device as a challenge.
But describe the scene, don't just summarize it.

As for the actual impartation of knowledge, I'd probably skip it, and
describe the aftermath as Ranma wakes up.  Those scenes with lots of
*flashflashflash* labels and half sentences padded by ellipses are
commonly used in mundane fanfics, and do nothing to raise said fanfics in
status.  I usually skip past them, since the writers who do these scenes
usually can't make them work.

When WW III had started up around them he had built the Gate in a day.

Right.  WWIII.  A little lead in, please?

I think I've probably hashed this theme enough by now, so you ought to
have an idea of what I think needs to be added in.  So, I'll just comment
on things I thought implausible here on out...

The rest of his world (except criminals to be executed , and the people who 
started WW III along with their genetically created soldier killing 
machines) would be going to the uninhabited world.

And while Ranma doesn't have much time because he's staring at his watch,
he had all the time in the world to review the dossiers of all those
people, and decide whether to bring them along or not.  I don't believe
this...

bombardment. Some of Earth's governments had Antimatter missiles in their 
orbital stations.

Hmm...just thinking about the elaborate equipment needed to contain
antimatter, I find this concept on earth in the near future to be
ludicrious.  Lots and lots of nukes would do the same thing, for a
fraction of the cost.

However, this is just me, and I doubt most peopel will catch this, or even
care.

destroy the whole Earth. Ranma had revealed the existence of the Gates to 
many people. He made sure the governments (which were completely totally 
corrupt) never learned of them.

How?

A government isn't a person.  It's not a group.  It's comprised of lots of
people, some of which may be foolish, but some of which are not.  It has
good people working for it, as well as the bad.  Additionally, of all the
people Ranma told, not one single person talked about it at all?  Of
course something like that is impossible.  People do gossip, betray, or
hold hidden allegiances.  The scenario you paint isn't realistic.

I'd much rather believe that the governments did learn of it, and were
sending in their troops to capture the Gates for military purposes, which
is why Ranma is fleeing with as many people as he can stuff into the
things.  Perhaps he has people around the world that are keeping in touch
with him, to make sure the ones he's not close to are destroyed or
deactivated permanently if the enemy show up.

That scenario is also filled with implausibilities, but it's slightly more
belivable than the picture you're painting.

Since he would be traveling alone he should have enough power to go back and 
forth easily enough.

After all those people join him...

"You fools!  I told you to go.  Now, I ran out of power..." ^_^

 The harsh world that the larger number of people had 

went to was only temporary. With the portable Gate he could scout out other 
worlds and find a nice uninhabited one. He could then build Gates on the 
harsh world and settle everyone into a nicer environment. Then he could go 
back to the Presider's world and let everyone know. 

You know, I don't really get this either.  9 million may not be a drop in
the bucket of the world's population, but it is still only a teaspoon.  If
there are only 300,000 people in the other world, that is a LOT of unused
space.  You could fit much more than a measily 9 million.  Heck, if you
left all the really really nice parts to the natives and took all the
parts that were too snowy, too rainy, or too dry, you could probably fit
more than a billion.  In fact, there are probably thousands of cultures
that wouldn't have it any other way, as such climates are their way of
life.

Ranma smiled as the gate closed.  "There, now I just have to get myself out 
of here.  It definitely makes it easier.  Well, time to get moving."  He 
quickly gathered up his data crystals (well nigh indestructible artificially 
made crystals that could store huge amounts of any multimedia data)

Great.  While the majority of the human race is suffering the
inhospitable climate of an angry world, he can amuse them all with
electronic slide presentations.  (Was it necessary to specify multimedia? 
I know it's a neato media/business manager buzzword and all, but it
doesn't make sense here)

inhabit.  "Well, this should do it.  Goodbye, Earth."

"Goodbye Ranma." 

Ranma grunted.  "Goddamnit Mamoru, what the hell are YOU doing here?"

"Please take me with you, Ranma!  I need to find a new world for my pretty
roses!  They'll all die here."

Ranma sighed once more, and exiled the tuxedo clad man to the same world
he exiled the cast of Weis Kruss earlier that month.  The men lived in
Ohotori Academy happily ever after.

Everyone broke off and jumped into the gate, except Ranma.  He glanced back 
one last time, and then dove through. Moments after the Gate closed the 
first of the missiles hit and destroyed Nerima.  Soon the rest of the world 
followed in a senseless death.

Versus the sensible death it would have suffered, had it not been for
those evil, corrupt governments.

Ranma fell out of the Gate vortex that closed behind him. He wondered where 
they were. In the distance he could here yelling, explosions, and the name 
Lina Inverse. 

Bleh.  Introduced too fast, and too blatantly.  Purely my opinion, of
course.

Actually, I thought that the other characters meeting Ranma was a nice
scene in a prolog.  You'll still have to tell the reader just how the
xover characters know Ranma, but that can be done in the course of the
story.  This last paragraph though is just more synopsis stuff, and should
be redone extensively, if not completely removed.

Besides the "evil government" shitick and the the logical inconsistancies,
it's just a wormhole xover premise.  But you have at least attempts to
make it more plausible.  Lengthen your descriptions, so that you're truly
telling a tale, and not just a summary, and I think you could have a
prolog that has people gaining interest rather than just passing it off as
another overloaded crossover, especially if you can establish in this part
that your skills as a character based writer are of high caliber
(multi-xovers tends to fail otherwise).  The example scene I'd written at
the top of this C&C is probably not enough, and filled with grammatical
and spelling errors, but I hope it serves as a guide in how I feel the
scenes in your fic should be written.

-Natsume Ranma Ranma
-------
The sardines weren't worth the trouble.  A few more shots, then
Ryoga-san would overheat and explode.  Ducking around a corner,
I managed to lose him as I entered the ramshackle residence of
my Anime supplier.

One look at his face and I knew that I had been betrayed.  "Tell me,"
I insisted.  He refused, so I slammed him against the wall.
"Last chance.  Where can Ranma-Ranma find good fanfics?"
"Try Jason Liao," he whispered, before he slumped to the floor.
I heard the sounds of a door splintering as I left through the
window, one step ahead of Tendo Heavy Industries...




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